“An’ if yu please, Misther O’Brien,” said Mrs. Macfarlane with ferocious politeness, “will yu kindly mintion, if yu did not do the job, who did?”
“Faith, that’s where the joke comes in,” said O’Brien, pleasantly. “’Twas the very same baste that ruinated me roses, bad cess to him, y’r precious pet, ‘King William’!”
“Oh! is it lavin’ it on the dog y’are, yu traitorous Jesuit! The puir wee dog that never harmed yu? Sure, ’tis only a Papist would think of a mane thrick like that to shift the blame.”
The colour rose to O’Brien’s face.
“Mrs. Macfarlane, ma’am,” he said, with laboured civility, “wid yer permission we’ll lave me religion out o’ this. Maybe, if ye say much more, I might be losin’ me timper wid ye.”
“Much I mind what yu lose,” cried Mrs. Macfarlane. “It’s thransported the likes o’ yu should be for a set o’ robbin’, murderin’, desthroyin’, thraytors.”
“Have a care, ma’am, how yer spake to yer betthers. Robbin’, deceivin’, murdherin’, desthroyin’, thraytors, indeed! I like that! What brought over the lot ov yez, Williamites an’ Cromwaylians an’ English an’ Scotch, but to rob, an’ desave, an’ desthroy, an’ murdher uz, an’ stale our land, an’ bid uz go to hell or to Connaught, an’ grow fat on what was ours before iver yez came, an’ thin jibe uz for bein’ poor? Thraytors! Thraytor yerself, for that’s what the lot ov yez is. Who wants yez here at all?”
Exasperated beyond endurance, Mrs. Macfarlane struck at the stationmaster with her neat black umbrella, and had given him a nasty cut across the brow, when Kelly interfered, as well as Finnerty and Mrs. O’Brien, who rushed in, attracted by the noise. Between them O’Brien was held back under a shower of blows, and the angry woman hustled outside, whence she retreated to her own quarters, muttering threats all the way.
“Oh, Jim, avourneen! ’tis bleedin’ y’are,” shrieked poor anxious Mary, wildly. “Oh, wirra, why did ye dhraw her on ye? Sure, I tould ye how ‘twould be. As sure as God made little apples she’ll process ye, an’ she has the quality on her side.”
“Letter,” said Jim; “much good she’ll get by it. Is it makin’ a liar ov me she’d be whin I tould her I didn’t touch her ould lilies? Sure, I’ll process her back for assaultin’ an’ battherin me. Ye all saw her, an’ me not touchin’ her, the calliagh!”[2]